MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM SHORELINES

We Find a New Home for Otter Pup 719

A sea otter pup we rescued on a stormy winter day is now settled in at her new home at Shedd Aquarium, thanks to a longtime collaboration with our famed Chicago colleague.
Ellie, formerly known to us as pup 719—since she’s the 719th otter we’ve taken in since 1984—thrived under round-the-clock care from our sea otter program staff after we rescued her in January.

Ours is the only program in
the world that rescues and cares for stranded southern sea otter pups. We raise pups for release back into the wild, and try to place non-releasable pups in long-term homes at accredited U.S. aquariums and zoos.

Prepping a pup for release to the wild is an intensive, long-term project that enlists our adult female exhibit sea otters as surrogate mothers. When pup 719 stranded, all available surrogates were already paired with other rescued pups. Luckily, our friends at Shedd Aquarium had room in their sea otter exhibit.

We prepped pup 719 for her big move to Chicago by acclimating her to face-to-face human care during swimming and grooming sessions, bottle feeding and the transition from formula to
solid food.

After two weeks, a Shedd animal trainer arrived to meet the pup and work with our team on her training. Following a week of close collaboration, we said farewell to Ellie. She was accompanied by the trainer and Shedd’s veterinarian on the flight to her new home.

We've been studying the southern sea otter since 1984 with the aim of understanding threats to the population and promoting its recovery in the wild. This critically needed work costs over $1 million each year, and we rely on member and donor support to make
it possible—thank you!

More What's New

Listening to Monterey Bay

Listening to Monterey Bay
Scientists and engineers
at the Monterey
Bay Aquarium
Research Institute (MBARI)
have installed an ultra-sensitive
sea floor hydrophone
about 3,000 feet below the
surface of Monterey Bay.
The hydrophone can pick
up sounds too low or too
high for humans to hear
from the deep rumbles of
blue whales to the high pitched squeaks and clicks
of common dolphins.

"We're trying to characterize
the soundscape of
Monterey Bay," says John
Ryan, the biological
oceanographer in charge of
the hydrophone project.
"This includes biological
sounds, such as vocalizations
of marine mammals,
the sounds of physical
processes such as wind and
rain, and the sounds of
human activities."

MBARI researchers are
still trying to figure out how
to analyze this barrage of
sounds, which are being
continuously recorded. One
approach is to turn the
sound into a moving picture—a "spectrogram" that
shows how sounds change
over time. Acoustics
experts can "read" these
spectrograms to identify
the sounds of specific
marine mammals.

Researchers were
excited to see frequent
calls by Baird's and Cuvier's
beaked whales. They spend
most of their time diving in
deep water and are almost
never seen at the surface,
so very little is known
about them.

According to John,
"We're still in the process of
demonstrating what's possible
with this new instrument.
So far we've only had
time to look at a few snippets
of sound. And yet, each
one has had something
wonderful in it."

“Party” with
Cooking for Solutions!

Saturday, October 1

Savor ocean-friendly food and drink by more than 50 restaurants, wineries and breweries (7–9 p.m.)

Explore the Aquarium's award-winning exhibits

Dance the night away in the Marine Mammal Gallery

Cash bar (9–11:30 p.m.)

Cooking for Solutions
fans—the wait is over!
The Party returns
Saturday, October 1 with
extended hours so you can
dance the night away in the
Marine Mammal Gallery.
You can savor ocean friendly
food and drink by
more than 50 restaurants,
wineries and breweries.
We're also planning
cooking demos, fun
photo ops around the
Aquarium and more.